On this day in 2016, we lost Hollywood icon Debbie Reynolds, mother of the late actress Carrie Fisher.
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The Singin’ In the Rain legend was reportedly ready to celebrate Christmas 2016 with her family when Fisher suffered a heart attack on a flight on Dec. 23.
Fisher passed away on Dec. 27, and Reynolds died the next day from a stroke. Reynolds’s son, Todd Fisher, attributed her death to heartbreak.
Close friend Sue Cameron recalled that Reynolds had already planned the Christmas menu when she heard her daughter was gravely ill. Cameron noted that Reynolds loved Christmas so much that she even kept a tree up all year round.
“When Carrie was flying in on the plane [from London], Debbie had already made sure the table was set,” Cameron told PEOPLE in 2019. “The menu, everything”
Fisher, 60, suffered a heart attack during a flight to Los Angeles. The Star Wars actress and prolific writer passed away days later in the hospital, just one day before her mother’s death.
“There was no Christmas dinner. The table just sat there,” Cameron added.
Debbie Reynolds Picked up Fans Across Multiple Generations
Born Mary Frances Reynolds on April 1, 1932, the actress signed a Warner Bros. contract at just 16 after winning a beauty contest. She won a Golden Globe Award for her part in 1950’s Three Little Words, but her role in 1952’s Singin’ in the Rain made her a star. By the end of the decade, she had appeared in over 20 films and released a pop album.
Reynolds was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress in The Unsinkable Molly Brown (1964) and a Tony for Irene (1973). She’s also known as Bobbi, Grace’s mother, on Will & Grace.
Reynolds’ first marriage to actor Eddie Fisher in 1955 ended in a public scandal when he divorced her in 1959 to marry Elizabeth Taylor. She and Fisher had two children, Carrie and Todd Fisher. Reynolds would go on to marry and divorce two more times.
Carrie Fisher later based the character of Doris Mann in the 1990 film Postcards From the Edge on her mother.
Reynolds continued working into her 80s, releasing her autobiography, Unsinkable: A Memoir, in 2013.
Reynolds’ Granddaughter Paid a Touching Tribute to Her in 2019
Meanwhile, on Christmas Day 2019, Fisher’s daughter and Reynolds’ granddaughter, actress Billie Lourd, honored her loved ones who passed away so close together.
In a post on Instagram, Lourd shared a sweet and somber throwback photo of herself as a baby with Reynolds and Fisher.
In the caption, she encouraged anyone grieving a loved one to reach out for support.
“Happy holidays! (But also sad/emotional/weird/stressful holidays!) Sending my love to everyone who has lost someone they loved and is missing them a little extra today,” Lourd wrote. “I see you. … Don’t grieve in silence. You’re not alone.”